R. West Arts

I had the pleasure of attending Kate Santucci's Encaustic Collage class last night. What a wonderful experience with the small class size and having a chance to learn, explore and get to know Kate.
My piece is a combination of wax, stabilo crayons, Mulberry paper and most interestingly, snippets from an old German grammar book.
I took her intro class a few months ago to help correct some mistakes I had been making and am looking forward to taking her Encaustic Textures class later this summer. https://www.katehusersantucci.com/

🌟🌟Calling all student artists! Applications are now open!
Students artists must be age 1-22 and currently enrolled in school.

https://artfestonmain.com/student-artist-application/

Please note, due to space and to decrease “no shows” we have implemented a small fee for booths.

I was finally able to take my first in-person Encaustic class. Even though I have been working with encaustic on my own for about 6 months, I still learned so much and came home energized!
Thanks Kate Santucci and to all that made this class happen.

Going on over a month of no studio. But at least my temp space comes with a cat.

Not able to use any hot wax techniques right now in the dinning room. 😔

They are finally painting the walls today but no word yet on new flooring. Grrrrrrrr.

Apparently ripping apart my art studio is going to become an annual spring event. Last year the water heater flooded the room and I was out of commission for 2 months. This year, sump pump failure and it's one month and counting.
All during the rush to finish projects for art show application deadlines. Ugh!!!

I was recently a part of a wonderful fundraiser for The Contemporary Dayton and thrilled that my encaustic wax piece sold during the first half-hour of open selling at the preview party. There were 259 artists from all over the world that donated their artwork for this wonderful cause.
It was such a fun evening of getting to know other artist and art lovers.

A little brightness for a cold winter day. This was taken in mid January while traveling in Austin, Texas at Ladybird Johnson's Wildflower Center. Austin had not had a freeze yet so there were still a few flowers and butterflies showing off even though much of the fauna was ready for winter.

For the last several months I have been busy gathering supplies and the courage to venture into the ancient art of painting with encaustic wax, which is bees wax mixed with a natural tree resin, damar, and must be heated or molten to paint with. This encaustic medium, which cools to a slightly milky finish, can be used by itself to coat or seal in other paints, mediums, photos or even natural elements like leaves. The wax can also be pigmented with colors to be painted with while melted. The wax can be presented as smooth for an ethereal look or highly textured.
This medium is extremely durable as it was used 2000 years ago by the ancient Greeks and Romans to adorn mummy casings as seen in the the first photo posted. The other photos are of some of my first works on my new journey. Most are 5"x7" or smaller. Working my way up as I learn.

Please join me for an evening of fun to help support our local contemporary arts gallery and organization Feb 13th. I, along with other local and national artist, have donated postcard sized treasures for the fundraiser. All will be available for sale that evening. The twist is that each piece is anonymous until you make your purchase. Giving budding artist, such as myself, equal footing along with established ones. Get your tickets at the link below.
Those not sold that evening will be available for purchase in their gift shop at a later date.

In Small Measure | The Contemporary Dayton Enter a world of small works and big discoveries. Join the Live Sale Event for $35 or come early to the $135-per-duo Preview Party for first access to a wall-to

I have been busy since this summer trying new techniques and styles. Come see what I have been up to.